All Of My Memories
by SpobyOTP
Summary: Post Season 5 Finale. Elena deals with the fallout of Damon's death, and struggles to find a balance to the grief that she is experiencing. When her dreams take her to a place she never thought before, will she be able to find the peace she needs?


Emotion for a vampire was a tricky thing to work through. The natural emotions they had carried with them through their human years, now manifested itself into something infinitely more dangerous and exhilarating. The slightest thrill of happiness could result in a contagious high that lasted weeks, months, even years. The slightest edge of terror, could result in a never-ending chronic fear of anything that moved, and a hint of mourning, something powerful and relative to all species, could last an eternity if the person suffering from it, allowed it to continue.

The same could be said for Elena Gilbert. It had been forty-eight hours since the worst possible thing happened. Forty-eight hours since she lost the love of her life, her boyfriend, Damon Salvatore, and her best friend all in one fell swoop. It happened during the dangerous mission they had all embarked on to trap the Traveler witches, and free some of the undeserving souls from the bowels of purgatory before it collapsed on them.

Damon had been the trigger for the explosion; a move that had been agreed upon by Elena when the facets of her mind calmed down enough to convince her it was the only logical solution to a problem that had plagued them for months. Getting into the car, despite the history she had with them, had been the best decision of her life because she had gotten to spend what would be her final moments with the man of her heart, with the vampire who captured it despite her resistance at first, despite her rampant objections that Stefan would be her always, would be her savior.

She thought it would be okay; she thought that Bonnie would be able to bring him back from the Other Side before it went away, and he would be fine. It was what she was banking on, and the one hope that had kept her from completely falling apart when he kept failing to return. When her best friend had come to her and told her that it was "too late" that the powers that be, had kept him from coming back, it had been all she could do to keep a lid on her emotions until she was able to properly say "goodbye" to him.

There was no closure, there was nothing that could ebb the pain that flowed through Elena's veins as she walked in a daze through the empty halls of the lake house where she, Stefan, Caroline and Ric had decided to migrate to after their hometown was taken over by the anti-magic spell.

Turning a corner on the first door on the left, she walked through the orderly room, pausing every now and then to look at keepsakes from her past, a past that had been devoid of all of this pain that she was now going through, a life that was peaceful and happy once upon a time.

Swiping a hand across her swollen eyes, Elena walked foreword until she sat down on the mattress in her old bedroom that had been home to dust particles and filth until Caroline had insisted on cleaning it for her before she took up residence there.

Laying on her side in the familiar position she had used since she was small, Elena wound her arm under the pillow, imagining the warmth that came from it, to be Damon's featherlight touch as his arm served as a cocoon from the outside dangers and pain.

She missed him; she missed the way his voice lowered almost imperceptibly when speaking to her, she missed the way he would always dive into the heart of danger to protect her, even if it meant securing her wrath later on, and she missed the way he waited for her for all of those years until she finally felt strong enough to admit her true feelings.

She missed so many things about the man, but she missed his devotion the most. She missed the heroism that had ultimately been his downfall. She missed the goofy, lopsided grin that graced his face when they were enjoying a rare private moment together, and she missed the hugs and cuddles they tried to engage in, but could not always find the time.

Shaking her head in complete incredulity at the power of the pain that was seizing her heart, she prayed for a reprieve, even if it was a brief one. It was too much to go through the double whammy of losing him, but also losing her best friend, the one who had tried to get him back, but had failed when the spell the witches had been doing, had been stopped for whatever inexplicable reason they had.

Because of them, Damon was gone.

Because of them, Stefan had lost his big brother, and she had lost her soulmate.

She was distracted from her rambling thoughts by a quiet knock on the door that alerted her to an intruder on the private time she had been trying to bask in. Raising her head from her tear-soaked pillow, she looked over her shoulder as Stefan entered the room.

They had avoided each other the last two days. Even though Elena did not hold any real blame toward him for not keeping his word in waiting for Damon, she still couldn't help but feel a little angry that he was there, and Damon was the one who had paid the price for embarking on such a dangerous mission to bring him back.

"Hi," Stefan said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I was just—Caroline and I were going to head into the woods to teach Ric how to hunt."

"Okay," Elena replied, surprised that she was even able to speak through the haze of tears that clogged the back of her throat.

"Do you want to go with us?"

"No."

She was just as glad as any of them that Ric had been able to come back to them, but she was not in the mental frame of mind to teach him self-control when she was doing all she could to keep _herself_ in line.

"Elena, I'm sorry," Stefan said, as he came closer to her and sat down on the edge of the bed, the added weight of his body, sagging the delicate mattress.

"For what, Stefan?"

"For being the one who came back. I know I made a promise to you that I would wait for Damon, and I'm sorry."

Elena nodded as she grasped the blankets in her trembling hand, trying to keep a measure of calmness about her when she remembered that she had lost Damon, but Stefan had also lost the one person he had known longest in the world.

"What happened?" she asked. "When you came back. Why did you come back first?"

"It was an accident," Stefan said quietly, bowing his head before looking back up at her. "Bonnie was having problems, and I reached out a hand to help her."

Elena nodded, swallowing back the lump in her throat. "Thank you for telling me the truth."

"Caroline and I were talking about going after Liv and Luke to find out what happened when the spell stopped."

"We already know," Elena said, as a lone tear slid into her mouth. "Either she stopped willingly, or he made her. Either way, one of them is at fault."

"Right, so we have to figure out what happened and maybe we can get some answers, maybe they can even help us get them back."

Elena shook her head. "Why would they help us if _they_ are the reason that Damon is gone?"

"Elena-"

"I just want to be alone right now."

"Okay," Stefan said, deciding to respect her wishes as he quietly got up from his place, and headed toward the door. "Just so you know, Elena, we _will_ find something. I promise you."

"Thank you," Elena said, trying not to recall the memory of Damon saying those exact words to her right before they had gone on the mission to rid their town of the Travelers. It was the sacred word of his promise that had kept Elena going until she absolutely could not anymore, and now that his promise had been broken for the first time, she did not know what to think, what to believe anymore.

Readjusting her position on the bed, she closed her eyes, trying to will her brain to fall in line with what her body was trying to get her to do, and sleep. It had been two days since her body had allowed her to sleep, two days since she had gotten a wink of rest that her overwrought brain desperately needed.

Maybe if her brain calmed down enough, she figured, her body would follow suit and allow itself to stop twitching every single time she stayed stationary for any length of time. Heaving a deep breath, she tried to imagine sleeping the way she was accustomed to now, with Damon's arm wrapped around her, pulling her close and protecting her against the unseen dangers of the world.

The bed felt so empty without him. It was amazing how she could have taken the smaller things for granted, when they were just as important as the bigger, more grandiose things he did for her.

Finally, she felt that familiar slip as her brain began to dive into the heart of unconsciousness, allowing her the first taste of freedom she had been fortunate enough to have since facing the harsh reality of his death.

Snuggling deeper into the pillows, she let her mind wander to happier times between she and Damon. The moments over the summer that she would have given her right arm to reclaim again, the times where it was just she and him and Jeremy, and the three of them bickering over something silly and unimportant, but seemed life-altering at the time.

When she opened her eyes, when her body gave its final shove toward the dream land that had all but abandoned her recently, she was stunned to discover that she was on a lonely road. The road that was overlooking the hilly incline where she waited to meet her parents the night of the car accident.

She knew this place; this was the place where she and Damon had first met, where the mysterious stranger in black had told her to get everything she was looking for out of life. Had her mourning state taken her to such extremes that she was now hallucinating the places that were exclusive only to them?

"I know this place-" she began, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that first, she could talk in this dream, and second that her dreams had taken her there. "It's the place where-"

"Where we met and you poured your heart out to me about Donovan," a voice said; a voice that she would crawl through fire and ice to reach, and the voice that she would recognize in her deepest slumber, and was yearning for more and more with each day that went by.

Damon.

He was standing there, smirk firmly planted on his face and swagger still in effect as he walked foreword to meet her, clearly oblivious to the shock he was giving her as he stopped in front of her, a finger reaching out to trace the delicate lines of her cheekbones, the same way he used to do every time he had the chance.

"Damon?" she choked, her eyes widening to the size of saucer dishes when she finally wrapped her mind around the fact that she was really seeing him. He was wearing the same clothes he had died in, and still had the same peaceful look that she had last seen in him.

"In the flesh. Well, sort of."

"I don't understand. How are you-"

"Here?" he asked, finishing the unspoken sentence for her. "I had to squeeze in some time with you."

"But how? And is this real?" She knew that vampires could manipulate dreams, but she had never known them to do it when they were on opposite sides of the veil, and certainly not when dead.

"It is," he confirmed. "I guess I just had to strain my powers a little bit further than normal, but I figured out how to work it."

Elena shook her head, feeling some more of the same tears run down her face despite her best efforts to control them. "I can't believe you're gone."

No matter how many times she had tried to convince herself to the contrary, she could not believe that Damon was really and truly gone from her life. It had happened so quickly, and it had left her with a void in her chest that hadn't healed in the two days since his death, and she knew it would not.

"It's one of those things," he said gently. "I know I never wanted to leave you for this craphole I'm in right now, but fate is a nasty bitch."

"Where are you?" Elena asked, needing to know for her own peace of mind, even though there would likely be nothing she could do to change it regardless.

"I don't know," Damon said, throwing his arms wide. "Somewhere stupid and pointless. It's not oblivion, I know that."

"Then there might be something we can do," Elena said, grasping on to the tiniest amount of hope she could for her own peace of mind. "If you didn't get sucked away, we might be able to get you back!"

"I don't know," Damon said quietly, as he stepped foreword to give her a small peck on her forehead like he used to do when it was just the two of them.

"Is—Is Bonnie with you?"

"She is," Damon said, sighing impatiently. "Witchy's been giving me a history lesson on the power of spells, and the cosmic order of the universe."

"She's good at that," Elena said, as she made the first move this time, and melted into his chest, wrapping her arms around him, needing the close proximity for her own peace of mind, even though she knew it wouldn't last much longer.

"Yeah, well, I have to put up with her so I figured I'd learn the fine art of tuning her out," Damon said teasingly. "How are you doing?" he asked more seriously, perhaps sensing how close she really was to losing her remaining sanity.

"Not good. I just—I just don't understand-"

"It's not something that's printed down in a book of how-to's," Damon pointed out. "It sucks."

"Yeah, it really does," Elena said with a weak laugh.

"I'm not gone, though," Damon reminded her. "I thought I was getting sucked into the vortex of hell that Katherine the slut went through, but I didn't. I'm still around, Elena."

"It's not the same," Elena pointed out.

"I know," Damon said softly, as his finger gingerly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Can we stay like this and never leave?" Elena wondered, knowing that it was an impossibility, but still wanting that familiar closeness that she was craving.

"I'm sorry. It's not like this place allows exchange students to hitch a ride on the death-machine. I just wanted to see you again. I didn't think I'd be able to, but I underestimated my ability to control dreams."

"I'm glad you could."

"Me too."

"So," Elena said, dreading her next pair of words because she didn't want to admit that her time with him had come to an end. "Is this it?"

"For right now."

"I love you, Damon," Elena said, as she felt her eyes close as her lips turned upward into an easy pout to catch her lips in.

"I love you," Damon said, as his own mouth found its way onto hers. "Elena."

Even though she hated for the dream to end, when Elena woke up, all she felt was a strange sense of peace warring with the part of her that still felt grief for her boyfriend and friend. It wouldn't be the same, not until they found a way to be reunited permanently, but she woke with a smile on her face for having the dream that she did.

Everything would be fine.


End file.
